Development
The article: As We May Think.
"The origin of the GUI can be traced back to Vannevar Bush, a scientist and futurist who worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during World War II. In his now classic 1945 magazine article As We May Think, Bush proposed an information administration tool, the Memex, that would allow data to be stored on microfilm and made easily accessible, linkable with hyperlinks and programmable.
In 1963 Ivan Sutherland, a graduate student at MIT, developed a program for his Ph.D. dissertation called Sketchpad, which allowed the direct manipulation of graphic objects on a CRT screen using a light pen. His concept included the capability to zoom in and out on the display, the provision of memory for storing objects and the ability to draw precision lines and corners on the screen.
In 1963 Ivan Sutherland, a graduate student at MIT, developed a program for his Ph.D. dissertation called Sketchpad, which allowed the direct manipulation of graphic objects on a CRT screen using a light pen. His concept included the capability to zoom in and out on the display, the provision of memory for storing objects and the ability to draw precision lines and corners on the screen.
Douglas Engelbart, who had already been researching in human-computer interaction at Stanford University in the early 1950s, was greatly inspired by Bush's concepts. He unveiled the first primitive mouse in 1968 at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. Termed the X-Y Position Indicator, it was housed in a small wooden box with wheels, and it took the cursor with it on the display screen when it was rolled around on a horizontal surface.
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Much additional progress occurred at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), which Xerox Corporation established in 1970 in Palo Alto, California for the purpose of creating "the architecture of information" and "humanizing computers." This included developing the first usable GUI, which was incorporated into PARC's Alto computer. The Alto, which debuted in 1974, was envisioned as a smaller, more portable replacement for the mainframes that dominated computing at that time. However, it and its successor, the Xerox Star, never achieved commercial success, presumably due to their very high prices." - Linux Information Project
During a visit to Xerox PARC, Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple was shown the Xerox Alto. He was noted saying, “They showed me three things, but I was so blinded by the first one that I didn’t even notice the second and third one”. He was so amazed by the Xerox Alto that the moment he got back to Apple, he ordered his design team to create a computer with a GUI. By then, Apple desperately needed a new product, as the Apple II was failing. During the project, Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project, so he joined the Macintosh group to develop a Personal Computer with a GUI.
Steve Jobs talking about the Apple Mac
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"The Apple Macintosh, launched in 1984, was the first commercially successful use of a GUI. It was so successful, in fact, that the GUI was subsequently adopted by most other developers of operating systems and application software, and it is now used on (or at least available for) virtually all types of computers. Moreover, GUIs are employed in a wide range of other products as well, ranging from industrial controls to toys."-Linux Information Project
"Picasso had a saying, he said: good artists copy, great artists steal. We have always, I, have always been shameless of stealing great ideas." -Steve Jobs |
One of those companies who was inspired by the Apple Mac was Microsoft. In 1984, Microsoft needed a new operating system, as their current operating system sales were dropping. In 1985, Microsoft unveiled Windows 1.0, which was designed to temporarily replace the old operating, turned out to be more successful than previously anticipated. Due to its large success, Microsoft decided to continue developing Windows. Now, Windows is the most popular operating system, at about 91.24% market share.
"Microsoft announced development of its first operating system that incorporated a GUI in November 1983, and the initial version, Windows 1.0, was released in November 1985. Windows 2.0, released in December 1987, represented a major improvement over the primitive Windows 1.0 with its addition of icons and overlapping windows, but it was not until 1995 with the launching of Windows 95 that Microsoft was able to offer a relatively high quality GUI."- Linux Information Project
"Microsoft announced development of its first operating system that incorporated a GUI in November 1983, and the initial version, Windows 1.0, was released in November 1985. Windows 2.0, released in December 1987, represented a major improvement over the primitive Windows 1.0 with its addition of icons and overlapping windows, but it was not until 1995 with the launching of Windows 95 that Microsoft was able to offer a relatively high quality GUI."- Linux Information Project
The People
Vannevar Bush
"Vannevar Bush was an American Engineer, known for the development of the atomic bomb and the idea of the "memex". The memex was first mentioned in Bush's essay "As We May Think" printed in The Atlantic Monthly. The ideas of the memex are considered the beginnings of the world wide web which influenced the inventor of hyper text Ted Nelson. Though his ideas caused a large change in communication and access of information, he never lived to see his ideas realized." - University of California, Los Angeles
Xerox PARC Team
"In 1975 the researchers at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) moved into their permanent headquarters at 3333 Coyote Hill Road near Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Jacob Goldman had founded PARC just five years previous, and already at this early date the research team had developed many of the ideas that shaped the future of computing.
The Palo Alto Research Center's mission as directed by Xerox management was to create the office of the future. To that end they created many of the technologies we take for granted in the modern office, such as networked personal computers, with E-Mail, word processing, and laser printing, but the most significant innovation at PARC was the graphical user interface (GUI), the desktop metaphor that is so prevalent in modern personal computing today". - Ohio State University
The Palo Alto Research Center's mission as directed by Xerox management was to create the office of the future. To that end they created many of the technologies we take for granted in the modern office, such as networked personal computers, with E-Mail, word processing, and laser printing, but the most significant innovation at PARC was the graphical user interface (GUI), the desktop metaphor that is so prevalent in modern personal computing today". - Ohio State University